Last week CCG leaders in Leicester admitted a similar programme had failed to attract GP recruits.

The £250,000 scheme, jointly run by the CCG, NHS England and the local authority, which offered £20,000 to new recruits resulted in just three out of 16 practices involved taking on a new GP.

Leicester City CCG chairman Dr Azhar Farooqi told a council meeting the scheme should not be dropped because of the post-election move towards seven-day working, the Leicester Mercury reported.

GP golden hello

Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield CCG chief clinical officer Dr Stewart Findlay said: ‘It is important that we continue to attract highly qualified GPs to our region. We live in a beautiful part of the country and we need to use this as a marketing tool to attract the best candidates possible to our area.

He added: ‘The GP ‘career start’ scheme will help us to do that. We hope that after completing the first two years of these salaried posts (hosted by individual practices) that the candidates will be ready to take the next step to partnership in a practice in our area.

'High levels of GP retirement are anticipated in the next two to five years, so, planning ahead for us is vital. Our practices are keenly aware of this and want to ensure that these posts will allow candidates to flourish.’